Question

Major players in the U.S Health service systems are –Physicians –Administrators –Insurance executives discuss the positive and negative effects of their often conflicting self-interests. Does the Affordable Care Act address these issues?

Answer 1

There are more of a negative effects of the conflicting self interests than that of the positive effects. The first negative effect is the building of the nexus between these players that look after to serve their own interests, rather the best interests of the patients. For example, a physician will send patient to the hospital where the physician has affiliations even if the patient has to pay higher cost of treatment. The second negative effect is the focus upon profit and incentive creation by the players, rather implementation of the ethical and best corporate governance policies. The third negative effect is the service providers using their nexus as a tool to siphon more money from the patient and rise in cost of health care takes place. It overall affects the economy and government efforts are negated. There are few positive effects also. One positive effect is the less hassle is to be faced by the patients, as players know each other and can give better treatment. But, it is the moral responsibility of the service providers and they should do it to everyone.

ACA (affordable care act) has looked after these conflicting self interest issues and took different initiatives. Firstly, it completely barred the service providers such as physicians to gain any incentive, bonus or other benefits if they recommend the patients to their allied institutions. The second initiative, is to focus upon the quality of the treatment and result oriented pay to the service providers so that there will be no benefit to go for the unnecessarily costly treatment plan. Afterwards, the ACA focused upon the best accounting practices in health care to prevent any malpractices to manage the conflicting self interests. So, ACA worked on these aspects.